


he came from the sun

by edvic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, Immortality, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Seaside, Story within a Story, Strangers to Lovers, Water Spirit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edvic/pseuds/edvic
Summary: “Sounds like crying,” he says.Ron looks at him from across the fire. The sky is blue above their heads; pink, orange and red in the distance, where the sun is slowly sinking into water. The halo makes Ron look oddly angelic, he thinks.“Crying?”Trying to deal with his own grief, Harry visits a family summerhouse by the sea. He starts hearing things he can't explain.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65
Collections: Tomarry Reverse Big Bang 2020





	1. stranger in the night

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the [beautiful art by you_light_the_sky.](https://youlighttheskyart.tumblr.com/post/628189850926972928/my-art-for-the-tomarrybigbang-for-2020-i-was)
> 
> I was immediately inspired when I saw Christine's art. In fact, I had so many ideas it was hard to settle on one. In the end I merged a few different folk tales from my home country involving water, demons, ghosts and gods, and some of my favourite tropes - strangers who may not be strangers, magic we refuse to believe in and Dealing With The Past. I had so much fun writing this hopefully you'll enjoy reading it too. ❤
> 
> If you'd want to get a musical feel of this story [here's a playlist I listened to while writing](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1XMCG1S1abhw9W1MI9u4d1?si=tDdl94FQQoOhL6vgdmSVkQ). 
> 
> Enjoy!

“Sounds like crying,” he says.

Ron looks at him from across the fire. The sky is blue above their heads; pink, orange and red in the distance, where the sun is slowly sinking into water. The halo makes Ron look oddly angelic, he thinks. 

“Crying?” 

“Listen,” Harry says, closing his eyes. He hopes Ron does too. 

At first he can only hear the crackling wood. He feels the warmth it emits and the different, dying warmth of the sun. Then he hears the wind. It’s close, in the high, stiff rushes by the water, and in the trees above them. He hears the evening waves. They’ll get louder in the night, he knows. Crickets. Distant voices travelling across the water. Someone’s cry in the dark-

“What are you two doing?” He hears Ginny next to his left ear. 

Whatever he was trying to catch is gone now.

“Harry says he’s heard someone crying,” Ron says, trying to stab the sausage they were supposed to prepare. It falls right onto the soft sand, making Ron curse.

“Crying?” Hermione seems alarmed and Harry knows why. She’s looking at the distant lighthouse and the harbor as if looking for clues. She’s always ready for the worst. Harry thinks it mostly because the worst is usually what happens.

“I must’ve misheard it,” he says, even though he’s sure he didn’t. “It must’ve been the wind.”

Hermione gives him one of her looks, the one that says “I want to believe you”. She's been like this ever since Sirius died and Harry-

No, he won't go there, not tonight. He’s promised himself. It’s time to let go. 

He unwraps a baked potato from the foil they've put them all in and burns his fingers with a hiss. 

"Careful," Ginny says. She's sitting next to him, close enough for him to feel the faint smell of her cucumber shampoo, but too distant to be able to lean on her with ease. This too is gone, he thinks.

A bird cries nearby and he hears an odd sound, like a stone falling into water from a great height.

"I've heard it too," Luna says from across the fire.

Harry has to blink constantly to keep her gaze but she seems unaffected by both smoke and heat. Her eyes remind him of the moon, pale and distant.

"The water?" He says.

"The crying," Luna says. "Last night. Tonight. The night we arrived."

She's so calm. Harry feels a shiver run down his spine. His skin gets itchy for some reason. Luna is still looking at him, as if there was no one else around them, no one but fire and the dark sky.

"I've heard a story," she says, and suddenly they're no longer alone.

Harry takes a sharp breath. His hands are trembling.

"About the town they’ve drowned?” Ron says, mouth full. “It’s actually-”

“About the lost soldier and the water spirit he tried to deceive.”

Is it the way Luna says it or something else that makes him even more uneasy all of a sudden? He regrets leaving his jacket on the bed in the summerhouse. 

“I’m not sure if I want to hear that story,” he says. Or maybe he only thinks it because no one’s looking at him. Ginny shifts further away from him and closer to Luna. The sky is dark and the sparks - yellow, red, orange - disappear into the night without a sound.

“No one knows what army brought him to the village by the sea,” Luna says, “but when his regiment left, something kept him here.”

* * *

His regiment left two weeks ago, but something kept him here, in the village by the sea. 

They thought he was wounded and maybe it was true at some point. A blade cut through his arm, and he hit his head badly, falling from the black horse he used to call Shadow. The horse was gone now and all he had left from the battle was a scar on his forehead and another one between his shoulder and elbow. The first one looked like lighting, the other reminded him of a river. Or maybe a leafless tree branch in the middle of winter.

It was almost December, but it didn’t feel like December at all. The people of the village said the sea made their winters mild and if they kept the gods pleased, cold storms wouldn’t come until February. 

He missed snow, he thought, taking another step towards the beach.

He passed by the bakery and the church - he could smell the incense even though the doors were closed - and there it was, right behind a line of trees. The sea. The village seemed to grow right from it, mere meters away from the grey water. The girl who took care of him at the inn told him there used to be a cliff, a border between the waves and what used to be a fishing harbor, but the sea took it many, many years ago. Not even the eldest people remembered it now, she said. A famous painter drew it a hundred years ago though, so she knew it was true.

“And if you look closely,” she said, changing the bondage on his arm, “some days you can see the old bell tower.”

Then she said she hadn’t seen it for a while now. The sea kept advancing rather than retreating. 

“But the stone’s still there,” she said. “The stone where mermaids come to sing.”

He was looking at it now. Lighter than the sand and grotesquely large, only a few steps into the waiter. He couldn’t climb it even if he tried. He wondered how mermaids did.

“If you only believe, you’ll see,” he heard someone’s voice behind his back. A smile curved his lips.

“You’ve come,” he said. “I was wondering if you would.”

“I promised,” the man said. He was already standing right next to him, appearing out of nowhere it seemed. Without a sound, as if he was used to floating above the ground rather than walking on it.

The sun was setting already, but the night held a promise of a bright moon. In the disappearing light of day, the man looked ethereal, he thought. Like a painting. Or a dream.

“Are you like a mermaid too?” He said. “Do I have to believe for you to appear?”

“Yes,” the man said, but his voice held an edge of laughter, “I’m like the spirits children swear they can see. Because they believe.”

“Do spirits eat thought?” He smiled, seeing the basket of raspberries in the man’s hands.

“Not usually,” the man said. “But children pick flowers often.”

He felt a heat rising in his cheeks despite the evening chill. The flowers in his hands - daisies, forget-me-nots - seemed sweaty all of a sudden. 

“I thought you might like them,” he said, unsure. What was he doing here, he wondered. With that stranger, in the dark. 

“I do,” the man said, and this time he smiled. He took the flowers and his hand, so naturally as if they knew each other much longer than they did, and he had to follow. To the lighthouse, he thought, but the man walked onto the pier instead. It was old and the far end had been already consumed by the sea. 

“It’s been like this for a while,” he remembered the girl saying. “It takes a few steps every year.”

They sat down. The wood was wet, but he didn’t mind. The man let his hand go even though he’d rather liked it. He hadn’t held another man’s hand like this before. It reminded him of his mother, but then again, it was different and odd and new. Like a story he hadn’t heard yet or maybe knew only in parts.

“Open,” the man said, holding a raspberry to his mouth. It was sweet and sour at the same time. His lips felt dry. The man’s fingers were soft. 

He took another raspberry and offered it to the man. For a moment it seemed he wouldn’t eat it, that he’d turn away. His eyes were endless in that moment, he thought, as if time stood still. 

But the man opened his mouth. Waves crashed against the pier, the wind getting stronger.

He didn’t know what to say. The man was holding his hand again. 

He looked at the moon. The man was looking at the sea.

The fingers interlaced with his own were delicate yet firm, as if the man was holding something more than his hand, as if he was trying to hold onto him. He didn't know what it meant. 

“Where did you come from,” he said, looking at him, but the man’s eyes were still set on the horizon.

“The sea,” he said, voice steady. “The bottom of it, where the king of storms lives in a palace made of amber.”

“Where do you go then,” he asked, suddenly irritated. “I don’t even know your name.”

“And do I know yours?” The man said, looking at him at last.

Their hands were no longer touching, he realized.

“Summer’s gone,” he said. He felt like standing up and leaving, like running perhaps. “And winter’s almost here. Am I supposed to wait for you on this shore every night until the world wilts and dies?”

“You couldn’t wait a year,” the man said. He could sense the disappointment in his voice. “Forever is not for you either.”

“Why can’t you stay? For one night?” There was a desperate edge to his words, he realized. As if he cared much more than he was willing to admit. “Can’t you see I want you to?”

"And if I stayed for all the nights of your life? Would you like that?"

"Yes," he said without much thought. How many nights were left in his life? If there were only a few, he'd want to spend them with the man. And if there were many- "I'd love you every night, every night more than the night before."

“All men are foxes, my mother used to say,” the man said. “And those with words like birdsongs are the worst of them.”

But even though he said it, even though he knew the man meant it, there was some new softness in him, like ice breaking or a fortress falling. A battle won, he thought, and for a moment, he felt victorious.

The man touched his cheek. He had never felt anything quite like this, he thought, and he wanted to touch the man too. He did. His skin was smooth like porcelain.

“Would you be faithful?” He heard the man say. The sea around them was oddly quiet, as if holding its breath. “Would you stay true?”

“I would,” he said. “I will.”

* * *

“But he didn’t, did he?” Ginny says. Her eyes are gleaming in the dark. “He broke his vows.”

“How do you know?” He says. His legs are numb from sitting in this weird position for way too long. He stretches them with a crack.

“It wouldn’t be a story if he didn’t,” Ginny says. She’s looking at him like she means more than she’s saying. It stings.

Harry looks away.

There’s only water. Water and what’s left of the old pier. They’ve built a new one, closer to the harbor and the town center. It’s wide and made of concrete.

“So what happened next?” Ron says, but Harry feels like he can barely hear him. 

Something’s moving in the water, he realizes. A fish, he thinks, but it doesn’t look like a fish. It can’t be a shark, he thinks frantically, there are no sharks here, never been any. He could swear he’s seen a tail though, silver in the moonlight and gold when it reflects the fire. 

“The stranger disappeared into the night, like he always did,” Luna says, her voice and the wind whispering, “and the soldier, excited and hopeful and awake despite the late hour, took a long path home.”

* * *

When he walked by the stone, he heard something.

It wasn’t like any voice he had ever heard before. Like spring turned into a song, the voice made him feel warm and light, like a cup of water after a long march, it refreshed him. 

He didn’t want to move. Or maybe he couldn’t.

On the flat top of the stone, he saw something odd. A figure, man-like in form, yet not entirely human. 

Wet hair, face so pale it looked almost blue, eyes so bright he couldn’t bare looking into them. 

Long fingers turning into fins and arms of a man, and then- Legs, or something akin to legs, covered in scales that seemed silver when the moon reflected in them and as dark as the abyss when it hid behind clouds. 

He realized the wind turned from an evening breeze to a howl somewhere in the trees behind his back, on the path to the village. His shirt was pressing against his chest, sand rolling over his feet.

The creature looked at him and he opened his mouth to say something but no words escaped his throat. 

The song changed in his mind, though he couldn’t understand the words. Maybe there were none. In a way he couldn’t describe, he felt everything he heard. 

Longing. Love. Promises of things he couldn’t name.

“Why waste your longing on a feral bird,” a voice sung in his head, “Why let him play with your yearning, demand the absurd? Why let him laugh at your pleas?”

“He doesn’t,” he tried to say, but the northern wind swallowed his words. It felt cold where it touched his face. His hands trembled. Still, he couldn’t turn away and run. Something was holding him where he was, motionless and terrified. 

“Come to me, come to me,” the song went on, “dance in the crystal-blue waves.”

“I can’t,” he thought. “I promised.”

At last, his feet moved. He felt water embracing his ankles. It stung, cold as ice. 

“Would you prefer the fate of a swallow,” the creature asked, closer with each step, “that touches the surf in brief sweep? Or gleeful and cheerful fish that can follow me all the way to the deep?”

He was standing by the stone, water up to his hip. From the top of it, the creature observed his every move, lily-white hands reaching down. He didn’t dare to touch them, out of fear and shame. But no one could see them, he thought in the end. No one could tell. 

The hand was colder than water and wind, but swiftly it rose him up. Closer than ever with anyone, he felt his heart thud in his chest, as if the swallow he didn’t want to become was trapped under his ribs. 

Water danced around them, in swirls and odd shapes, like a cage of waves and droplets. And yet a silence fell over them, no sound reaching him from the outside. The song ended, he realized.

The creature touched him again, his hands and his neck where it was bare. His face, his hair. He felt water dripping down his cheeks. He was cold and trembling, no longer sure whether it was the cold shaking his body, or his heart beating so fast. His insides were turning, but not from disgust. Wherever the creature touched him, his skin itched. He wanted it to touch him more, time after time, every inch of him, every part.

When it kissed him, its lips were like ice, its skin odd to touch. The scales were cutting his fingers like blades. Was there blood on his hands, he wondered. Would it be proof of his crime. 

And yet he didn’t want to run anymore, not when the cold of the night was no longer cold. When he no longer feared looking at the creature, its beauty surreal. Up close, its hair was dark, its eyes gray rather than silver. Its skin no longer blue, hands no longer fish-like. The skin under his palms seemed less rough too, softening the more he touched.

“Who are you,” he dared to ask at last, his voice returning. “I don’t know your name.”

“And do I know yours?” The creature asked and suddenly, he froze.

He opened his eyes and he saw, as if a veil was raised from them. The hair, the eyes, the mouth. The shape of its skull and the line of its shoulders.

“What then of your promise?” The creature said, its voice familiar. “Should one break such parole, his life shall be forfeit. You sweared on gods and moon and you life.”

He tried to say something, to protest, but his voice was gone again. Not like before, lost in the wind; he could barely breathe. Helpless, he mouthed voiceless pleas. 

“What are you doing to me,” he wanted to say, clutching at his throat, where the creature - the man - kissed him not so long ago, making him gasp. He wanted to say he didn’t mean any of it, that it was all a trick. But would it be right? To lie again?

“Your soul will be bound to this stone by my spell,” the creature said, its voice oddly empty. “For a thousand years, no less, and you will learn how promises are kept.” 

“You don’t have to do this,” he’d say if he only could.

But water rose or maybe he slipped, feet no longer touching the soft surface of the stone. There was water in his mouth, in his nose. His eyes could see no more.

“Until the king of storms leaves his palace and consumes this land,” he heard the man say, distant now, “they will only hear your cries.”

* * *

“So that’s it?” Ron says. “We’ve heard a soldier turned into a stone?”

“You’ve heard wind,” Hermione says, though she doesn’t sound especially convinced. 

“He should’ve known better,” Ginny says, crossing her arms.

Harry’s looking at the stone. 

“It’s barely above the surface,” he says, and everyone looks at him and then at the stone. “He’ll be free soon.”

“Looks like twenty years at least to me,” Ron says, brows furrowing. Some days Harry forgets he’s studying geology. 

It’s getting cold. The fire is dying like the sun before. Only the wind stays the same, whispering all around them. Like there are people in the shadows. Or maybe mermaids in the water.

He tries not to look at the sea again, not where he’s seen that something that wasn’t a fish. It wasn’t a person either.

His feet sink into the sand as they walk. 

“Are you ok?” Hermione says when they’re almost at the house.

He nods without words.

“Maybe you could stay with us for the night?” She tries again, the worry in her voice so apparent it makes him tired and angry with himself. They shouldn’t have to worry about him, not like this.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, and it comes out almost rude. “Thank you,” he adds quickly, to soften his point.

The house is silent and dark. They switch on so many lights it must look illuminated for anyone seeing it from a distance. There’s a bathroom upstairs and he waits for his turn in the kitchen, not saying much. He doesn’t want to be left alone, he realizes to his own surprise. He’s not fine, he thinks. He hasn’t been for a while.

He brushes his teeth without looking into the mirror. The scar on his forehead looks fresh and he’s not used to it. Not yet. Maybe he won’t ever be.

“At least the stone is real,” he says to himself.

His phone is dead again, he realizes. Not that he’s expecting any calls.

When he lies down in his old bed, he hears the crying again.


	2. voices in the dark

He wakes up with a start. Something’s still chasing him in a dream and his feet won’t move. One deep breath in, then another. It’s like trying to walk through water. Voices calling his name and bells, bells tolling. His lungs are heavy and tired. One, two, three. He can finally open his eyes. 

It’s dawning outside, sky a bluish shade of grey.

Downstairs, everyone’s still asleep, which shouldn’t surprise him, but it does. He hasn’t been sleeping well lately and it baffles him some people do.

“Hi,” he says to the stray cat they’ve been feeding. The cat purrs before he even touches it. Then, it jumps on the porch. “You’ll have to wait for Hermione,” he says. The cat looks at him for a moment and settles on one of the old chairs.

Remus’ chair, he thinks, and for the first time in a while, the thought isn’t awfully painful.

It’s been three years since he’s seen Remus in that chair. Ten since Sirius sat next to him and pretended he knew how to play a banjo.

He still remembers that evening so well, he thinks, walking down the same path he took last night and many nights before. Sand on his left, pine trees on the right. His feet know it so well he doesn’t have to focus.

That night, he goes back again, he told them he wanted to be a special agent, like Clarice Starling, and they laughed so much. Not in a mean way though. In a way that said both “you wouldn’t want that kind of life” and “we all know you have no idea how to shoot a gun”.

They were right. He ended up more of a Will Graham, he thinks. Minus the encephalitis. At this point he’s mostly trauma and regrets. 

His phone starts buzzing in his pocket. It’s almost six.

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hi,” he hears a voice in his ear, slightly disfigured by the broken speaker. “Was just thinking about you.”

“Same,” he says. “I’m at the house.”

“I know,” Remus says. Harry doesn’t ask how exactly does he know. Probably Hermione. “How are you doing?”

“Better than I thought I’d be,” he says and it’s true. “And you?”

He takes his shoes off when the stone path turns into sand.

“Likewise,” Remus says. He hears doors opening and closing. “Haven’t been sleeping well. Teddy’s fussy. Gives me too much time to think.”

Harry thinks he understands. He’d offer sleeping pills as a solution but he knows Remus wouldn't’ want that. He’s taking too many meds anyway.

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

He must’ve been silent for too long.

“How long will you be staying?”

“Everyone’s staying till Sunday.” That’s in three days. “But I was thinking of staying another week here.”

Some more silence. It’s the longest call they’ve had in months, he thinks. They’ve been awkward for a while. Since Teddy’s been born. Maybe a bit longer.

“Would you mind if I showed up?” 

Remus says it so fast he barely understands.

“No,” he says, too loud. It sounds like a protest so he adds: “Not at all.”

“Great. We’re set then.”

He’s almost on the pier in the old harbor. Two boats, he thinks. Why two?

“Sure,” he says. It feels awkward again. “Should I make your old bed?”

Yours and Sirius’, he should say, but it’d be too cruel. He just can’t imagine someone else sleeping there with Remus. Maybe he’s still a child, he thinks. Maybe he hasn’t changed at all, trapped in that evening ten years ago.

“I’ll sleep downstairs,” he hears Remus say. “And I’ll come alone.”

“Oh,” he says, surprised. “That’d be nice.”

On the other side, Remus hums, whatever it’s supposed to mean. Then he asks about the weather and if he should bring sunscreen - Harry’s known for forgetting to buy it every single summer. Remus used to do it for him and even though they haven’t been living together for a few years now, these habits are hard to overcome. Then they say their goodbyes - warmer than usual, more natural too - and Harry realizes he’s already in the old harbor.

Unlike the new one, it’s smaller and not so well kept. But it’s closer to the house. And that’s where Sirius first showed him the boat.

The Moon. It took him a while to understand where it came from. Some nights Remus was up till dawn, when his condition got worse. When he was a kid, they told him Remus was sleepwalking. Once he was old enough Harry understood the name was all for him.

There’s the other boat too, like a perfect reflection. 

The Sun.

He blinks a few times. A weird coincidence. 

Luna would say it’s a sign, he thinks.

Both Moon and Sun are silent, as if someone put them to sleep a long time ago. Like it’s a fairytale and he walked into an enchanted town. 

He misses open water but in his head Moon sunk the day Sirius left and so sailing would be an act of desecration. He knows he’s promised his therapist he’d try. He can’t.

“An early bird?” Someone says behind his back and he shivers. It’s so sudden.

On the deck of Sun, a man is leaning against the railing. He’s dressed in white from head to toes, white shirt and white pants and no shoes.

“Have we met before?” He says before he can think. He’s not sure where it came from.

“Maybe we have,” the stranger says. “In the sky.”

It takes him a moment to understand.

“It’s not my boat,” he says. “I mean it is. Legally,” he adds, because he’s standing next to it and doesn’t want the man to call the police. “Not so much spiritually, I guess.”

“I see,” the man says.

He’s handsome, Harry thinks. Why is he talking to me, he thinks right after. 

He still feels like he’s seen him before.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” the man says, and Harry can’t fathom why. Why is he dragging it on. “Water’s more uneasy than I thought it’d be.”

“You sleep on the boat?” 

For some reason the idea seems weird. They’ve always slept at the house.

“I sleep on the sun,” the man says, and smiles, an oddly uncertain smile.

Harry smiles too, because it’s the polite thing to do.

The man jumps on the pier. His moves are swift and don't suit the early hour.

“Water’s still uneasy,” he says. “Since last night.”

Have you heard it cry, he wants to ask, but he doesn’t.

“It’s the ghosts,” the man says, looking at the open sea. His shirt moves with the wind.

“Ghosts?” He says. In the distance, he can see the stone.

“Don’t you know the story?” 

Which one, he wants to ask, but the man says:

“About the sunken town?”

Harry shakes his head. Ron said something, didn’t he? Last night. Or was it Luna? Someone told him once about a bell tower. If you climb the stone, you can still see it some days, a girl told him a long time ago.

“Before this town was build, a castle stood here, on this very shore,” the man says, still looking out, as if seeing something Harry cannot see. “The people who lived here sewed a white lightning on their blue banners.”

* * *

He looked up at the blue banner in the harbor. The wind was getting stronger. The sky, so peaceful in the morning, turned into heavy purple, the herald of storms. The air around him felt thick. 

He looked down at the blue banner reflected in the water. Around it, the sky was quickly darkening. Two suns, two moons.

He shouldn’t be here, he thought, looking around as if expecting to see something more than there was to be seen.

Ghosts, demons and spirits. At night, if you listened closely, some people said, a city would come alive. With fire and smoke and clashing of arms, and voices of misery flying into the sky. And then it’d die, before the dawn and before the sun. Noise would subside, and only in the fir you could hear a mournful psalm. 

Something rustled in the trees above his head. Something else in the distance, as if the water itself was talking.

Did he really hear that, he thought, and the hum of waves agreed. 

Whispers and cries and something like bells tolling. Changing wind, he thought. That had to be it.

And if it was something else, he would soon find out.

Someone told him he should bring a priest. Or at least pray a little.

He didn’t.

“Ready to sail out,” he said to himself, to cheer himself up a little. 

This didn’t work either.

He looked at the dark sky and the boat, finest he’d ever had, made of mahogany, so dark it seemed one with the deep water.

It was his idea, he thought. He knew no one in the town liked it. They were scared of whatever was hiding in the deep.

He had to go alone.

With wind all around him, as if it were a cloak, he jumped on the boat everyone called the Moon.

* * *

“You’re joking, right?” He says, looking at the sea. The sky is a pale shade of blue.

They’re sitting on the edge of the pier, shoes somewhere behind their backs. 

They’ve met before, they have, he thinks, looking at the man’s face. He knows his eyes.

“I’m not,” the man says. “Why would I?”

He shrugs. A few reasons come to mind, but he doesn’t say anything. It feels good to be sitting here and listening, even if the story's made up.

Something flickers in the water, not so far away from when they're sitting. It looks like scales, golden like the sun.

“People could hear it, right?” He says instead, eyes following the odd current. “That there’s something in the water.”

“Yes,” the man says. “No one dared to wander near it after dark.”

A seagull comes down from the sky with a cry. The golden scales are gone, hidden again. 

“Why don’t they now?” He says, looking at the sky and covering his eyes. The sun’s up. “Why can’t they hear it anymore?”

“You can, can’t you?” The man says and he has to look at him again. He thinks he doesn't mind. “You can hear the water talk. The trees whisper. The stone weep.”

“Why?” He says, oddly irritated. “What are these things?”

“Many wanted to find out,” the man says. “But only one tried.”

* * *

The further away he was from the shore, the more violent the weather was getting.

It started raining, small, soft drops at first, but he knew the rain would get heavier soon.

He knew he should be sailing back. He should’ve stayed where he was, safe under a roof.

But so many odd things had happened, so many people had seen them, heard them. Voices in the dark, figures and fires, as if the sea was burning. And so many people had disappeared over the years. Sailors and children and fishermen. Some would leave without a word, sinking into the night. Others would slowly become unlike themselves, held captive by the waves, as if becoming one with them.

The boat shook dangerously. His clothes were soaked.

“You won’t scare me,” he said out loud, but his voice didn’t sound particularly brave.

Something crashed against the side and he prayed. Maybe it was a particularly large fish. Or a tree trunk carried by the storm. Or maybe the lost bell tower he heard in his dreams. Whatever hit him, he could only hope it didn’t damage the wood.

He wasn’t ready to die, he realized suddenly. There were so many things he wanted to do.

Something whispered in the storm. Like a song, it had melody and rhythm. And like a song, it made him listen.

There was something ahead of him.

At first, he thought it must be an inland, a lonely rock maybe. Then, he thought about a whirl and his heart sunk. Water seemed to circle around it, and with every passing moment it was harder and harder to control the rudder.

He saw a light too, like a lighthouse, if only there could be one in the middle of the sea.

Against his will, he was getting closer to it. Trapped, a moth flying towards fire, unaware of what would happen to it.

He saw a man.

Maybe not a man, he thought, though it was easy to make a mistake at first.

Like a statue, the creature was pale and without a single flaw in its form. And the light, he realized now, was the moon shining through the clouds. The wind had died too, as if they were in the very heart of the storm, where nothing could touch them.

His hands clutched onto the rudder, trembling. He was so cold.

“Who dares enter the land of the dead?” The creature said. Its lips were like coral, its hair like the night itself. It had the voice of death and sunken ships.

“I do,” he said, too loud in the unnatural silence. 

“And what are you seeking here, where souls sleep?”

“I want to bring peace to them,” he said, opening his arms as if to embrace the horizon, “the ones who cry in the dark.”

The creature fell silent. He saw its feet touching the surface of the water as if walking on it. His boat stopped moving, held captive it seemed.

“No one can bring them peace,” the creature said, its voice solemn. “They have angered the god of storms.”

“Which one,” he said, because there were so many.

"The one who lives in the palace of amber," the creature said.

He didn't know that one, but decided it wouldn't be wise to admit it. 

"You should not spare these souls a thought," the creature said. 

It was moving, he realized, getting closer. And the closer it got the more human it looked. Or like a dream, perhaps, like no man could ever look. Its eyes were like the sea, as if he was staring into centuries. He saw the stone, but no sea around it. A wall around a town, high, the colour of sand, waves crashing against it. Something was happening, but he couldn't tell what. The colours were changing too fast, turquoise to navy blue, white to grey to black. He heard voices too. Angry, then miserable. Bells tolling, like in his dream. Fire, smoke and ash. And waves, so high he could no longer see the stars. The voices were getting louder, screaming in his head. Someone tried to grab his arm, someone else his hand. He stumbled and cried himself. A window broke above his head. Someone prayed. The pavement under him trembled. And then - darkness. A distant cry. 

The creature was standing next to him. 

Had we met before, he thought, but his throat was too dry to ask. 

The creature touched him, its hand cold like water would be, so cold his skin burned whenever its skin met his own. 

"What did they do? " He asked, even though he wanted to ask "Why do you look at me like this?"

"If you knew, you would not ask for peace," the creature said. 

How do you know, he wanted to ask, but he didn't. There was water all over his face and neck. 

"Do not ask," the creature said. "Gods will not listen."

* * *

“Do you believe it?” He says. The sun is high up in the sky. He’s left his sunglasses at the house.

“I do,” the man says, stretching his legs. “Do you?”

“I’m not sure,” he says. He can’t bear to look into his eyes for too long. 

They’re sitting much closer to each other than he thought they were. When he moves his left feet underwater, it brushes against the man’s. He’s slouching now and the man has propped himself on his hands. If any of them moved, they’d bump into each other. Probably fall into water too if they weren’t careful enough.

It makes him oddly conscious of the placement of his limbs.

“The way you told it,” he says, “it made me feel like I was there. Like you were there too.”

The man doesn’t say anything. 

Instead, he moves, his back leaning forward. Their arms touch. He can’t see a single freckle on the man’s face even though they’ve been sitting in the sun for the better part of the morning.

“How would that be possible?” The man says. 

He wants to shrug, but if he does, he’ll move against the man’s side. Their arms touch, their elbows too. 

He wishes the man would wear a sleeveless shirt.

“I don’t know,” he says instead. “I’m the one hearing voices, right?”

The man smiles, a crooked half-smile. He thinks he could watch him smile all day long.

“Tell me,” he says, moving his left foot, “how did it end?”

“The sailor was the bravest of men,” the stranger who came from the Sun says, “but he had feared death.”

* * *

He didn’t want to die, he thought again. Not yet.

But his hands were cold and his lips trembled. His limbs felt lifeless, legs buckling under his weight. The shore was nowhere to be seen.

“There is no way out of the land of the dead,” the creature said, sitting next to him. There were scales on its legs, blue and silver and grey, he could see them clearly now.

“Am I going to die?” He said, because he had to know.

“Not today,” the creature said. “Today, you’ll sleep.”

He felt a weight fall on his back, embracing him like a featherbed. It was heavy and heavenly soft. His arms didn’t feel so cold anymore.

“How long will I sleep?” He said, barely opening his mouth. Speaking was much harder than he remembered it to be.

“Until the sea takes the last stone,” the creature said, “and all the souls pass.”

Someone was carrying him.

The sky was no longer violet. The storm was gone. He could count all the stars if his eyes weren’t so heavy.

“I don’t even know your name,” he tried to say, but his voice died halfway through.

* * *

“And do I know yours?” The man says, smiling again.

He feels like he’s heard this conversation before. Like he’s lived it perhaps.

“Will I see you again,” he says instead, trying not to sound too desperate.

“You will,” the man says. “Tonight.”

Their arms are still touching. He wants to lean on the man’s shoulder, but he doesn’t.

“Where?” He says, looking ahead. The water is endless and one with the sky.

“You already know,” the man says. “Don’t you?”

* * *

“Harry?”

Someone’s shaking his arm. He doesn’t know where he is.

He tries to grab and kick and run. His breath hitches.

“Harry,” someone says again. “It’s me.”

“Please, calm down,” another voice says. It’s familiar.

He opens his eyes.

It’s dark, he realizes. It’s night already.

Where am I, he thinks. His feet are wet.

“Hermione?” He says. The look on her face tells him everything he has to know. They thought he’s done something stupid again.

“We’ve been looking for you for hours,” Ginny says. She seems calmer, she always is. “Next time you feel like disappearing, leave us a note.”

“I-" He doesn't know what to say. "I'm okey."

"You sure?"

He nods a few times. Ron helps him get up. Someone else grabs his shoes. He feels cold and oddly dizzy, head spinning. Too much sun. Not enough water.

They're almost on the beach when something makes him stop. He looks around. 

The Sun is gone. 

It was never really here, he thinks.

The wind laughs at him from above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [one of the few inspos for this chapter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPS1DA-UFs&ab_channel=HumanArkStudio), hope you had fun reading!


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